Bvlgari
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The bergamot arrives as a flash of brightness, immediately suppressed by the green pepper's vegetal bite and the tea's tannic astringency. It's jarring, almost sour, like biting into an unripe citrus rind whilst standing in a Japanese tea garden after rain.
The cardamom blooms into prominence, its resinous camphor quality weaving through the green tea to create something almost medicinal—think Tiger Balm tin and tatami mats. The tea note becomes rounder, less sharp, as if the leaves have steeped long enough to release their gentler, more contemplative qualities.
Beeswax emerges with its characteristic waxy sweetness, melding with tonka bean to create a subtle, skin-close warmth that's more savoury than sweet. What remains is the ghost of tea and the peculiar comfort of beeswax—natural, unadorned, and quietly tenacious.
Jean-Claude Ellena's 1992 composition opens like a wet tea leaf crushed between your fingers—astringent, verdant, and startlingly alive. The Italian bergamot doesn't perform its usual citrus fanfare; instead, it's restrained, almost whispered, allowing the green pepper to add a peculiar vegetal sharpness that makes your nose tingle. This isn't the polite, ceremonial tea of afternoon service but rather the first unfurling of sencha leaves in hot water, that precise moment when chlorophyll and essential oils release their most concentrated essence.
The green tea note here is genuinely photorealistic, anchored by cardamom that lends a resinous, slightly eucalyptic quality rather than the spice aisle sweetness you'd expect. It's this cardamom-tea marriage that gives the fragrance its distinctive character—medicinal without being clinical, aromatic without tipping into potpourri territory. Then comes the surprise: beeswax and tonka bean in the base create an almost savoury warmth, like honey stirred into strong green tea, the wax lending a tactile, waxy-smooth texture that feels both古 Japanese minimalist and oddly edible.
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